PES rapporteur Marco Dus, Member of Vittorio Veneto Municipal Council (Italy) presented at today's ENVE meeting his draft opinion on "Climate finance: an essential tool for the implementation of the Paris Agreement" in which he stresses the importance of local and regional authorities in the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
The opinion points out that climate change is real and that it will have a direct impact on many issues like migration and investment capacity. The European Committee of the Regions recognises the importance of EU initiatives in the area of climate change, such as the European Commission's High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable finance, the European Energy Efficiency Fund and the European Investment Bank's Climate Awareness Bond (CAB).
It is necessary to improve the ability of local and regional authorities to navigate between the various existing initiatives. This requires also a clear definition of what is meant by labels such as "climate finance", "green funds" etc. The Committee also offers its support to the European Commission in drawing up an operating manual to provide a map of funding opportunities at EU and international level specifically for local authorities and the CoR has already commissioned a study to give some initial indications on how this could look like.
Moreover, Dus underlines how the Paris Agreement itself suggests that the national plans should involve local and regional authorities. Considering the fact that these entities will be the ones to implement the decision taken in the first place, their involvement should be central.
Last but not least, local authorities should be given the possibility of getting a clear understanding of the climate risks in their area in order to take the best possible decision.
The draft opinion will be adopted at the October CoR plenary session.
